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Freakout-nomics

If you think conservatives are freaking out over the growing prospects that health care reform will, in fact, happen, wait
until you see the freakout over climate change.

You see, a snowy winter in the northeast United States was supposed to have proved the climate skeptics right, after all. But a funny thing happened while they were celebrating: globally, this is shaping up as the warmest
winter on record:

Now, short-term weather fluctuations don’t prove much — but that’s the point the climate scientists have been trying to make; it’s the skeptics who point to an unusually warm year in the
recent past and declare “See, the planet is cooling, not warming”.

So what are they gong to do? Not change their minds, of course — what I’ve learned from a decade of punditing is that nobody ever admits they were wrong about anything. No. they’re going to switch
arguments completely — before, a cold day meant global warming was a hoax, now a warm year means nothing — hey, weather fluctuates! It’s already happening.